to benefit his people, and entered upon its duties with vigor.
Immediately upon his appointment, he was requested to make
investigations as to the existence of a harbor fit for the shelter and
victualling of ships bound from Hong-Kong to Singapore. He reported that
Labuan, a small island north of Borneo, was in every way suitable; that
it was about equidistant from the two parts; that it had a fine harbor,
or rather roadstead; that it was healthy; that it abounded in coal of
the best quality; that, finally, the Sultan stood pledged to convey it
upon reasonable terms.

But before legal papers could be drawn, the whole policy of the court of
Bruni had changed. The Sultan was a monarch with "the head of an idiot
and the heart of a pirate." All his sympathies were with violence and
robbery. Under the influence of others, he had agreed to use his power
against piracy, and had even been brought to say, in fawning phrase,
that "he wanted the English near to him." But he suddenly repented of
his good purposes. In a fit of Oriental fickleness he caused Muda Hassim
and all who favored the English alliance to be put to death, despatched
a messenger secretly to administer poison to Mr. Brooke, and entered
into even closer friendship than before with the piratical tribes. A
confidential servant of Pangeran Budrudeen, the brother of Muda Hassim,
with difficulty escaped, and fled to Sarawak. He related that his master
had bravely resisted, but, overpowered by numbers and desperately
wounded, had committed to his charge a ring, bidding him deliver it to
Rajah Brooke as a dying memento, and to tell him that he died faithful
to his pledges to the Queen; then, setting fire to a keg of powder, he
blew himself with his family into the air.

These tidings filled Mr. Brooke with grief and indignation. Every
passion of his fiery and energetic nature was aroused. He repaired on